Investigating PCB degradation by indigenous fungal strains isolated from the transformer oil-contaminated site: degradation kinetics, Bayesian network, artificial neural networks, QSAR with DFT, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulation.

The widespread prevalence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the environment has raised major concerns due to the associated risks to human health, wildlife, and ecological systems. Here, we investigated the degradation kinetics, Bayesian network (BN), quantitative structure-activity relationship-density functional theory (QSAR-DFT), artificial neural network (ANN), molecular docking (MD), and molecular dynamics stimulation (MS) of PCB biodegradation, i.e.

G-DIRT: a web server for identification and removal of duplicate germplasms based on identity-by-state analysis using single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping data.

Maintaining duplicate germplasms in genebanks hampers effective conservation and utilization of genebank resources. The redundant germplasm adds to the cost of germplasm conservation by requiring a large proportion of the genebank financial resources towards conservation rather than enriching the diversity. Besides, genome-wide-association analysis using an association panel with over-represented germplasms can be biased resulting in spurious marker-trait associations.

Drought Tolerant Near Isogenic Lines of Pusa 44 Pyramided With and , Show Accelerated Recovery Response in a High Throughput Phenomics Based Phenotyping.

Reproductive stage drought stress (RSDS) is a major challenge in rice production worldwide. Cultivar development with drought tolerance has been slow due to the lack of precise high throughput phenotyping tools to quantify drought stress-induced effects. Most of the available techniques are based on destructive sampling and do not assess the progress of the plant's response to drought.

A new approach to establish safe levels of available metals in soil with respect to potential health hazard of human.

Unlabelled: Safe levels of extractable pollutant elements in soil have not been universally established. Prediction of metal solubility in polluted soils and the subsequent transfer of these metals from soil pore water to the human food supply via crops are required for effective risk assessment from polluted soils. Thus an attempt has been made to develop a novel approach to protect human health from exposure to toxic metals through assessing risk from metal polluted soils utilised for agriculture.

Introgression of "QTL-hotspot" region enhances drought tolerance and grain yield in three elite chickpea cultivars.

With an aim of enhancing drought tolerance using a marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) approach, we introgressed the "QTL-hotspot" region from ICC 4958 accession that harbors quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for several drought-tolerance related traits into three elite Indian chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cultivars: Pusa 372, Pusa 362, and DCP 92-3. Of eight simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in the QTL-hotspot region, two to three polymorphic markers were used for foreground selection with respective cross-combinations.

Genetic Dissection and Identification of Candidate Genes for Salinity Tolerance Using Axiom Array in Chickpea.

Globally, chickpea production is severely affected by salinity stress. Understanding the genetic basis for salinity tolerance is important to develop salinity tolerant chickpeas. A recombinant inbred line (RIL) population developed using parental lines ICCV 10 (salt-tolerant) and DCP 92-3 (salt-sensitive) was screened under field conditions to collect information on agronomy, yield components, and stress tolerance indices.

Prediction of free metal ion activity in contaminated soils using WHAM VII, baker soil test and solubility model.

Bioavailability and ecotoxicity of metals in contaminated soils depend largely on their solubility. The present investigation was carried out to predict the free ion activity of Zn, Cu, Ni, Pb and Cd in contaminated soils as a function of pH, organic carbon content and extractable metal concentration. Twenty-five composite soil samples were collected from various locations which had a history of receiving sewage sludge (Keshopur and IARI, Delhi), municipal solid waste (Kolkata, West Bengal), polluted river water (Madanpur, Delhi) and industrial effluents (Debari, Rajasthan and Sonepat, Haryana).

Statistical optimization of process parameters for improvement of phycobiliproteins (PBPs) yield using ultrasound-assisted extraction and its kinetic study.

The present study is mainly concerned for the development of an optimal ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) condition for phycobiliproteins (PBPs) from Oscillatoria sp. (BTA 170) using Taguchi methodology. Four process parameters viz.

WA-CMS-based iso-cytoplasmic restorers derived from commercial rice hybrids reveal distinct population structure and genetic divergence towards restorer diversification.

One hundred diverse iso-cytoplasmic restorer (ICR) lines carrying WA cytoplasm indicated significant but moderate variability for agro-morphological traits as well as for the microsatellite-based allele patterns. There were two major groups of ICRs based on agro-morphological clustering. Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers identified allelic variants with an average of 2.

Stress-responsive miRNAome of Glycine max (L.) Merrill: molecular insights and way forward.

Analysis of stress-associated miRNAs of Glycine max (L.) Merrill reveals wider ramifications of small RNA-mediated (conserved and legume-specific miRNAs) gene regulatory foot prints in molecular adaptive responses. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are indispensable components of gene regulatory mechanism of plants.

Tomato geminivirus encoded RNAi suppressor protein, AC4 interacts with host AGO4 and precludes viral DNA methylation.

Plant RNA silencing systems are organized as a network, regulating plant developmental pathways and restraining invading viruses, by sharing cellular components with overlapping functions. Host regulatory networks operate either at the transcriptional level via RNA-directed DNA methylation, or at the post-transcriptional stage interfering with mRNA to restrict viral infection. However, viral-derived proteins, including suppressors of RNA silencing, favour virus establishment, and also affect plant developmental processes.

Non-target toxicity of synthetic insecticides on the biological performance and population growth of Bracon hebetor Say.

Bracon hebetor Say (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is an important biological control agent of various species of order Lepidoptera and extensively used in biological control program worldwide. Present study evaluated the lethal and sublethal effects of insecticides on B. hebetor using demographic and population growth parameters.

Effect of qGN4.1 QTL for Grain Number per Panicle in Genetic Backgrounds of Twelve Different Mega Varieties of Rice.

Background: Rice is a major source of food, particularly for the growing Asian population; hence, the utilization of genes for enhancing its yield potential is important for ensuring food security. Earlier, we have mapped a major quantitative trait loci (QTL) for the grain number per panicle, qGN4.1, using biparental recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations involving a new plant type Indica rice genotype Pusa 1266.

Improvement of Basmati rice varieties for resistance to blast and bacterial blight diseases using marker assisted backcross breeding.

Marker assisted backcross breeding was employed to incorporate the blast resistance genes, Pi2 and Pi54 and bacterial blight (BB) resistance genes xa13 and Xa21 into the genetic background of Pusa Basmati 1121 (PB1121) and Pusa Basmati 6. Foreground selection for target gene(s) was followed by arduous phenotypic and background selection which fast-tracked the recovery of recurrent parent genome (RPG) to an extent of 95.8% in one of the near-isogenic lines (NILs) namely, Pusa 1728-23-33-31-56, which also showed high degree of resemblance to recurrent parent, PB6 in phenotype.